Editorial: Tunneling for terror in Gaza

It was the Hamas missiles, mostly intercepted by the Israelis’ Iron Dome missile defense, that brought Israel into the war. But it was the tunnels that inspired an anger that unified a normally divided Israeli public in favor of the war. The extent a

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Posted Aug. 11, 2014 @ 2:55 pm

With a cease-fire holding in the Gaza Strip last week and peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas under way in Cairo, the Israeli Defense Force withdrew from Gaza, asserting that it had destroyed 32 Hamas tunnels, including at least two dozen from Gaza to southern Israel.

It was the Hamas missiles, mostly intercepted by the Israelis’ Iron Dome missile defense, that brought Israel into the war. But it was the tunnels that inspired an anger that unified a normally divided Israeli public in favor of the war. The extent and sophistication of the tunnel network took even the Israeli intelligence services by surprise.

Interrogations of captured Hamas fighters also revealed a plot to send hundreds of terrorists through the tunnels into Israel during Jewish New Year celebrations in late September. The goal was to murder or kidnap thousands of civilians.

Thankfully, this plot was thwarted, a huge defeat for Hamas, which spent seven years digging the tunnel system. It used imported concrete, a humanitarian exception to the blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt. Hamas lied that the concrete was being used to build and repair hospitals and apartment buildings.

A main Hamas goal of the war, which cost almost 2,000 Palestinian lives (including hundreds of fighters described as “innocent civilians”), is to end that blockade. How ironic if this goal becomes a casualty of the real use of the concrete.

You’d think the tunnel network, which included underground shelters to store arms and protect Hamas leaders and fighters, would at least have saved the lives of many civilians from IDF bombardments. But Hamas refused to let civilians use them. What public relations value, Hamas evidently figured, would Palestinian civilians provide if they could shelter in tunnels instead of serving as human shields or victims?

Israel may not have gotten all the tunnels, but it appears to have discovered most of those breaching its border. They were yet another exercise in hatred and futility by Hamas, one more reason for the Palestinian people to reject terrorism and choose a very different path, of peaceful coexistence.